Project One Pre-Production: Production Schedule

    The first real day of pre-production was today, and first things first I had to organise what I was going to be doing over the next couple of months, in the form of a Production Schedule. The schedule is split into the three sections of production: pre-production, production and post-production.

    I have time slots and dates on the document, so I can allocate certain tasks to certain slots to give myself plenty of structure and a clear plan for each day, week and month. I have also added a 'Blog Update' column, so I can keep track of what I need to be evidencing throughout the day, and so when it comes to updating the blog I know exactly what needs to be included. Further along to the right of the spreadsheet I have included a key, so that myself or anyone reading the schedule can understand the colour code, and also over to the right I have included a list of the units that need to be covered, and whether or not I have accounted for those tasks in my schedule, to make sure I do not miss any units.

At the present time I have completed the pre-production section of the schedule, but not the main production section. The reasoning behind this is that whilst I am confident in the overall style and theme of my game, I am not completely sure of the intricacies of it just yet. I believe that tasks such as playing other similar games and designing the core game play loop will give me a much clearer idea of the individual elements of the game, and thus make it easier for me to plan out the production schedule in a more informed way, rather than just guessing. As you can see on Thursday 6th October, I have allotted time for reviewing the production goals, so that I can see exactly what game I am going to be creating, which will allow me to go on and create a well planned main production schedule.

A side by side capture of my production schedule (left) and checklist (right)

I also created a Production Checklist, which is a list of everything that needs to be completed in each of the three stages of production. The checklist is used to fill the production schedule, so the green boxes indicate that that task has been accounted for on the production schedule. I tried to cover every aspect of the game's development that I could think of, using reference material such as this IGN article about video game production, but I am sure I will have missed things off the checklist, as I believe is natural for someone who hasn't been through a production cycle before. Again, once I have a better understanding of the game I am creating I believe I will be able to add plenty more to this checklist.